Apparently,
there was no prenup. And in Washington, where the couple
lives, assets acquired during a prenup-less marriage are split
50-50.

If you're married to the world's richest person (Bezos' net worth
is $137 billion!) who is entirely self-made, do you deserve to
get half?

For MacKenzie Bezos, absolutely. For one simple reason: There
would be no Amazon without her.

Ad

MacKenzie Tuttle and Jeff Bezos met in 1992 when they both worked
for hedge fund D.E. Shaw. MacKenzie graduated from Princeton and
became a research associate at the firm where Bezos was a vice
president. Her office was next door to his, and three months
after they began dating, in 1993, they were married.

While at D.E. Shaw, Bezos came up with the idea for Amazon.
MacKenzie was supportive from the beginning, despite the high
probability that his venture would fail (after all, almost all
startups do).

Brad Stone writes in The Everything Store: "At the time,
Bezos was newly married, with a comfortable apartment on the
Upper West Side and a well-paying job. While MacKenzie said she
would be supportive if he decided to strike out on his own, the
decision was not an easy one."

MacKenzie later told CBS: "I'm not a businessperson. So to me,
what I'm hearing when he tells me that idea is the passion and
the excitement... And to me, you know, watching your spouse,
somebody that you love, have an adventure - what is better than
that, and being part of that?"

In 1994, at ages 30 and 24, respectively, Jeff and MacKenzie
decided to blow up their cushy lives.

They road-tripped across the US in search of a new home and
headquarters for Amazon. MacKenzie drove while Bezos punched out
a business plan and revenue projections in the passenger seat.
After starting in Texas and buying a beat-up car, they wound up
in Seattle.

The pair brainstormed the name "Amazon" together after almost
choosing a different name: Relentless.com. MacKenzie became
Amazon's first accountant, despite being an aspiring novelist.

She did a lot of other grunt work, like most early startup
employees do, from driving book orders to the post office to
handling the company's bank account and line of credit. She met
early Amazon investor John Doerr and partied with the team in
Mexico after Amazon's IPO.

But beyond her early role in the company is the significant role
any spouse plays in a partner's career.

Sure, there's the sacrifice one partner might make to allow the
other to pursue a demanding career. But that's not what Buffett
was getting at.

"Marry the right person," he said at the 2009 Berkshire Hathaway
annual meeting. "I'm serious about that. It will make more
difference in your life. It will change your aspirations, all
kinds of things."

Would the notion of opening an online bookstore have taken hold
of Bezos as forcibly if he hadn't met MacKenzie? Would he have
executed on that vision in the same way, hired the same people
and taken the same kinds of risks with a different partner?

These are impossible questions to answer. But it's not outrageous
to suggest that a person's motivations, attitudes, and goals are
influenced by the most important person in their life.

Regardless of whether a spouse is listed as a partner on a
business masthead, many couples operate as a team focused on a
grand, overarching enterprise and work in tandem to achieve
common goals. That's part of the reason many state laws recognize
the concept of community property.

Buffett has said that without his first wife, Susie, who died in
2004, he would not have built his fortune.

"What happened with me would not have happened without her," he
said in a 2017 HBO documentary.